Club Nexus (Ivy Granger, Psychic Detective) by E.J. Stevens Page B

The discussion of Puck’s
side business let me know that I’d learn nothing more of interest here.  Puck
was bargaining, not sharing damning secrets.
    I needed to learn something I could use to gain my freedom,
preferably a secret so dark that I could throw off my bonds and see the
trickster bound into eternal suffering.  Perhaps I’d find a way to make him my
slave and let him lick my boots after a good wallow through yeti droppings.  Information
about drugs and blood slaves wasn’t enough; I required something truly damning.
    Arms hanging at my sides, I moved back to my post and sagged
against the bar.  Caught up in my own self pity, I nearly missed the appearance
of a woman who seemed to manifest on the stool in front of me.  I reached for
one of the pressed leaves we used for coasters and slid it onto the bar.
    “What can I get you?” I asked.
    I kept my eyes averted, studiously examining my cuticles. 
I’d found that it was easier to serve drinks when I didn’t pay too much
attention to the customers.  You never know who might stroll through our
doors.  I would die of shame if one of my fellow highborn recognized me here in
my servitude.
    I waited for the woman’s reply, but there was no answer.  With
a heavy sigh I glanced up to see the face that lay in shadow beneath the hood
of a cloak of deep blue like the night sky.  The cloak was beautiful, but the
woman embraced within its folds was more remarkable still.
    Ebony eyes stared from a face of pale, crystalline skin with
lips the color of bruised inkberries.  I knew that a kiss from those lips was just
as poisonous as the bitter fruit they resembled.
    “My l-l-l,” I stuttered.
    My liege , I’d meant to say, but the words were frozen
on my tongue—literally.  The woman seated before me was none other than Queen
Mab, ruler of the Unseelie court.  My queen had been absent these past hundred
years and now here she was in Club Nexus, and she’d frozen my lips shut tight.
    “Hush, my child,” Mab said.  “I am not yet ready for my
whereabouts to become common knowledge.  Our people have grown weak in my
absence and I require your services to restore our court to its former glory. 
Will you assist your queen?”
    I nodded, icy tears falling from my eyes to shatter on the
hard surface of the bar.
    “Good,” she said.  “I do believe you will enjoy the task I now
set before you.  Puck, Oberon’s former lapdog, has been acquiring too much
power in this city.  Kill him quickly and quietly.  I am granting you your
freedom, Beryl.  Do not waste this gift.”
    My heart swelled.  Freedom at last!  It was true that I’d
sought a long, painful torment for the trickster, but if the Queen of Air and
Darkness willed it, then I would kill Puck quickly.
    “You will not remember our conversation, of course,” she
said.  “My presence here in the mortal realms must not yet be revealed.  But
you are bound by our bargain all the same.  Put down Oberon’s pet and gain your
freedom.”
    I blinked and rubbed my eyes, wondering why they were misted
over and my cheeks were wet.  Had I fallen asleep on the job?  I glanced around
quickly, hoping Puck hadn’t noticed.  The last time I dozed off while working,
he’d held my hand over an open flame.  The bastard knew of my aversion to fire
and taunted me with it ceaselessly.  Thankfully, Puck was too busy with his
diversions to notice my lapse.  He was only now leaving the dance floor with a
curvaceous human on his arm.
    I wiped absently at the counter in front of me, trying to
look busy as I studied the trickster’s new conquest.  She bore multiple tattoos
on her bare arms, but they didn’t look like brandings or other marks of fae
ownership.  Examining her face, I could see that she was wearing heavy makeup,
but her eyes were still bright and alert.  The human wasn’t on Ice, yet, but it
wouldn’t take Puck long if he wanted her dosed.  All it would take was a quick
sleight of hand